Southern And Northern Dynasties Buddhist Science

Wei, Jin, and Southern and Northern Dynasties was an era in which splitting and unrest, wars and disputes were filled with; while it was also a thought-free period in which a hundred schools of thought contended and religions developed greatly; scientific and technological innovations and outstanding achievements kept occurring in this period, too. The introduction of Buddhism was a great event in the history of Chinese culture, and Wei, Jin, and Southern and Northern dynasties period was the golden age in the history of Buddhism development. This paper makes preliminary discussion on Buddhism's impact on science during this period from the perspectives of culturology, philosophy and philology, hoping to expand the research field of Chinese religious history and science history.The main achievements of Buddhism were scripture translation in Wei. Jin, and Southern and Northern period, large quantities of Buddhism scriptures with high quality were translated, which attracted a lot of Buddhists. As the communication medium between different cultures, a lot of scientific and technological information was included in large Numbers of Buddhism scriptures. As the most active subject of cultural communication, Chinese and foreign Buddhists were not only believers of Buddhism theory but also knowledge owners, in the process of translating scriptures and Dharma propagation, they played important roles in private Buddhism education and science's communication. From the influence of Buddhism on astronomy, calendar and Mathematics, there were a lot of knowledge on cosmological model, cosmological formation, celestial stars and calendar introduced to china, the new theory of universe and Chronotope enlightened Chinese thought and inspired Chinese imagination, many Buddhists from foreign countries or china knew astronomy and calendar, the broadcasting of Buddhism promoted the communication of knowledge on this aspect, which actually influenced celestial theory and calendar.From the perspective of Buddhism's effects on medical science, tripitaka preserved a lot of medical knowledge, it was increasingly common that Buddhists involved in the conduct of health care and became force that can not be ignored, during the period of disasters, Buddhism temple had ever been a place where medicines and treatment were offered. Chinese traditional medicine was influenced by foreign medicine on theoretical and practical perspectives, so the traditional medicine had richer content and broader view.The introduction of Buddhism led to the conflicts, communication and fusion between Buddhism and Chinese inherent traditional culture, which supplied deep thought foundation and cultural backgrounds for scientific development. Although there were some conflicts among Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, which mainly took the form of equal discussion and free argument in theoretical level, and this emancipated people's thought greatly and promoted the prosperity in various fields including academic prosperity of this period. As a strong philosophical religion, the development of Buddhism theory was closely related to Xuanxue, the communication of Buddhism and Xuan injected fresh energy to scientific thought. The introduction of Buddhism brought about substantial knowledge and theories on dialectical logic and further improved thinking level, but the thinking mode of Buddhism didn't affected scientific thought in china according to the direction and essence of Buddhism. The argument on spiritual perishability and imperishability had been an important topic in history of both science and Buddhism, theory of spiritual imperishability corresponded to view of body and spirit in Chinese tradition, so this theory was more influential. The philosophical thoughts of Buddhism improved Chinese people's thinking level and expanded thinking fields to some extent, however, the thoughts couldn't provide brand-new scientific thinking and methods, heaven, medicine and mathematics as the traditional fields of Chinese science kept the same paradigm, they developed sustainably within a certain range and degree.